I want to check whether a preconception I have about Active Vs. Passive speakers is true.

[Theta]

One clean implementation of subs I wish more people would copy is what JBL does with their LSR subs. You input to the sub, it does a crossover, and spits out the high pass onto your active speakers. One pair of connections with one or two subs is a no brainer.

Some people think no high pass is better. Are they wrong?

 

[staticV3]

Some people think no high pass is better. Are they wrong?

If your mains can play loud and deep without audible distortion, then you can use them full-range to have more bass sources distributed in your room, which will smooth out room modes.

But if playback is limited by bass distortion from your Mains, then high-passing them is naturally beneficial.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Some people think no high pass is better. Are they wrong?

Depends upon what you are pairing up. One advantage of a sub and monitors is you unload the low end from the smaller monitors allowing them more power available above the crossover point. I say in general they are wrong. You have control over meshing the crossover rather than hoping for a lucky fit between sub and mains.

Also, no two ways about the convenience of one set of connections vs having to have multiple outputs from your preamp.

 

[Palladium]

An active speaker whose amp dies, is a dead speaker, separates allow change. A good set of passive speakers should last years.

Less and less places are selling passive speakers. Twenty years ago there were over twenty places in Canberra selling passive speakers. Soon there will only be one. Lots of places selling "active" and " bluetooth" abominations .

There's a car mechanic shop I frequent who used have a 90s Japanese stereo for listening to FM radio, and they recently switched to a $30 Creative Muvo Play blows them out of the water even on mono only.

I can literally fit like 10 Creatives into one of their old passive speakers.

 

[Theta]

Depends upon what you are pairing up. One advantage of a sub and monitors is you unload the low end from the smaller monitors allowing them more power available above the crossover point. I say in general they are wrong. You have control over meshing the crossover rather than hoping for a lucky fit between sub and mains.

Also, no two ways about the convenience of one set of connections vs having to have multiple outputs from your preamp.

Multiple output from preamp is not a problem, €10 cables are available to parallel the output. Rel recommends not using high pass filter.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Multiple output from preamp is not a problem, €10 cables are available to parallel the output. Rel recommends not using high pass filter.

Yes this is going down the rabbit hole. Splitter cables are fine, if you get lucky and both units have the right sensitivity etc etc. Rel can do what they want, but with good crossover control you can make many more situations work right than otherwise. There is no single only way to do it, but I can guarantee the idea no high pass filter is always superior is wrong.

And this is simple to understand. Do the finest full range speakers delete a crossover for the woofer/midrange? There are a handful out of thousands that do, but in general speakers use a crossover on the woofer and the next step up the frequency range.

 

[Theta]

Yes this is going down the rabbit hole. Splitter cables are fine, if you get lucky and both units have the right sensitivity etc etc. Rel can do what they want, but with good crossover control you can make many more situations work right than otherwise. There is no single only way to do it, but I can guarantee the idea no high pass filter is always superior is wrong.

And this is simple to understand. Do the finest full range speakers delete a crossover for the woofer/midrange? There are a handful out of thousands that do, but in general speakers use a crossover on the woofer and the next step up the frequency range.

 

[Theta]

Sorry, I don't know the meaning of rabitt hole expression, English is not my first language..
I agree no highpass is not always better, especially when refering to mid-fi setups.
In most high quality configurations where amps and drivers are up to the task no high pass is best.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Sorry, I don't know the meaning of rabitt hole expression, English is not my first language..
I agree no highpass is not always better, especially when refering to mid-fi setups.
In most high quality configurations where amps and drivers are up to the task no high pass is best.

Never mind the rabbit hole expression. What it means is to delve way down into details where one might get lost about the original objective.

Please explain why no high pass is best. One could say if your speakers are up to it you don't need a sub. And that would be correct. Having done several setups over the years sometimes one can get away with adding a sub onto the low end well enough, but usually your job is much easier and result better if you control the roll-off of the main speaker to mesh with the sub and to control room anomalies.

 

[Theta]

Never mind the rabbit hole expression. What it means is to delve way down into details where one might get lost about the original objective.

Please explain why no high pass is best. One could say if your speakers are up to it you don't need a sub. And that would be correct. Having done several setups over the years sometimes one can get away with adding a sub onto the low end well enough, but usually your job is much easier and result better if you control the roll-off of the main speaker to mesh with the sub and to control room anomalies.

"Usually your job is much easier and result better if you control the roll-off of the main speaker to mesh with the sub and to control room anomalies." I do agree with that, but not optimal in some setups. I think Rel explains it better than I would.

 

[WOLFAGRAM]

I run active speakers in desktop setting. It is simpler and presumably there is a better matching between amp and drivers.

Powered speakers are also fine, they need one power cable less but one signal cable more (to connect two boxes).

Passive speakers can also work perfectly fine, so if you have the space for them, why not.

I would be much more careful which particular speakers to buy, since there are great stuff and not so great stuff in every category of speakers.

 

[Graham849]

There's a car mechanic shop I frequent who used have a 90s Japanese stereo for listening to FM radio, and they recently switched to a $30 Creative Muvo Play blows them out of the water even on mono only.

I can literally fit like 10 Creatives into one of their old passive speakers.

no argument with the sound, but I have clients whose sony bluetooth speakers last 3-4 years then dead. Some battery issues, some connectivity, some amplifier. i still believe that good passives gonna last longer than most actives.

 

[dualazmak]

Some people think no high pass is better. Are they wrong?

If your mains can play loud and deep without audible distortion, then you can use them full-range to have more bass sources distributed in your room, which will smooth out room modes.

But if playback is limited by bass distortion from your Mains, then high-passing them is naturally beneficial.

Depends upon what you are pairing up. One advantage of a sub and monitors is you unload the low end from the smaller monitors allowing them more power available above the crossover point. I say in general they are wrong. You have control over meshing the crossover rather than hoping for a lucky fit between sub and mains.

Also, no two ways about the convenience of one set of connections vs having to have multiple outputs from your preamp.

Even though I essentially agree with the points given by @staticV3 and @Blumlein 88, I would like to recommend you to objectively measure and see/observe the responses of your own subwoofer(s) (SWs) and woofers (WOs) around the possible crossover (XO) Fq for optimization of XO-Fq, filter slopes, relative gains, polarity, time-alignment, etc.

Just for example, let's think/simulate about a typical case as follows.

Providing that, in your home audio environment, you would have HiFi class L&R SWs well capable (in spec-wise) 16 Hz to 120 Hz, and you also have HiFi class 30 cm WOs in nice cabinet well capable (in spec-wise) 35 Hz to 500 Hz, how can you decide the optimal (best) XO Fq, filter slopes, polarities, gains, relative delay (time-alignment), etc. for your SWs and WOs?

My simple suggestion for your first step is to prepare two 8-sine-wave rectangular tone-burst signals of about -15 dB gain, one is 40 Hz, another one is 90 Hz.

Using typical measurement microphone set at your listening position, you would first record SWs-only sound of 40 Hz tone-burst and 90 Hz tone-burst by using suitable audio-interface connected to your PC or Mac in 96 kHz 24 bit PCM format; no low-pass (LP) (high-cut) filter should be used.

Next, you would record WOs-only sound of 40 Hz tone-burst and 90 Hz tone-burst, with no high-pass (HP) (low-cut) filter at all.

Then, you would record SWs+WOs (singing together) sound of 40 Hz tone-burst and 90 Hz tone-burst, with no LP nor HP filter at all.

Such recorded three PCM tracks should be loaded to e.g. Adobe Audition (ver.3.0.1 in my case) for 3D time-gain-Fq color spectrum analysis which gives visual representation of sound energy distribution in 3D (time-gain-Fq) space; you can see/observe tightness of the tone-burst air sound, yes, it represents "transient behavior" of your SWs and WOs as well as SWs+WOs for 40 Hz and 90 Hz tone-burst. Of course, you can see/observe the actual air sound wave shapes given by SWs, WOs and SWs+WOs.

Generally speaking, HiFi 30 cm WOs in excellent cabinet driven by high-damping-factor amp has better transient behavior than any SWs around 50 Hz - 120 Hz zone, and the Adobe Audition 3D color spectrum will give you visual observation/confirmation for selection of rather lower XO Fq, say XO at around 55 Hz, in this example case.

Now you can easily understand what would/should be the subsequent tests and measurements.

You may now apply LP filter for SWs, e.g. -24 dB/Oct Linkwitz-Riley (LR) at 60 Hz, HP filter for WOs e.g. -24 dB LR at 50 Hz, and record the room air sound of SWs-only, WOs-only, SWs+WOs, analyze them by Adobe Audition's wave spectrum and 3D-color spectrum. The wave-shape spectrum will give you visual info on phase continuity (for time-alignment), 3D-color spectrum will give you transient behaviors/characteristics (tightness/compactness of low-Fq sound energy distribution).

In this way, you can semi-objectively optimize (or best tune) XO-Fq, filter slopes, polarity, relative gains, time-alignment, etc. between your own specific SWs and WOs in your own acoustic environment. (Of course, final decision should be done by subjective listening to various tracks of your preferred music!)

If you would be interested in such approach, you can find some example cases of spectrum analyses using Adobe Audition 3.0.1 on my project thread as follows;
- Measurement of transient characteristics of Yamaha 30 cm woofer JA-3058 in sealed cabinet and Yamaha active sub-woofer YST-SW1000: #495, #497, #503, #507

 

[Quinton595]

Are you kidding, that's SPL for ear bleeding...

Oh yeah, Ill never actually play over 85 dB of course, but my understanding, from members of this forum, is that the gear should be CAPABLE of PEAK outputs of 105 to 110, to avoid distortion on sudden loud peaks in a track or an audio signal.

When helping me size a Headphone amp for my HD800s, this was the advice given, to avoid clipping, and to allow headroom for EQ, even though obviously I'm not listening to my headphones at 110 db

 

[kemmler3D]

I didn't know you could also use it to affect how sound is distributed to speakers and a sub, I'll have to learn how to do that, thanks!

There are basically two ways to use it:

1. Use REW / UMIK to measure the sub and speakers playing together (can use any crossover setting here), then use REW to create EQ curves to flatten the response in the bass region. You can then use EQAPO / Peace to implement the EQ.

2. If you have two sets of outputs on your audio interface / DAC, you can use EQAPO to create a crossover, separate from the one in the sub. You can then also use the method in #1 to flatten the response.

I just do #1 and set the crossover on the sub. Works wonders for eliminating room modes, too.

 

[kharan]

Hello everyone,

2. The vast majority of "high-end", "Audiophile", "quality" speakers are all passive, and active speakers are more geared towards the general public and consumer audio.

This is mostly untrue, and I think there is a misconception here that needs to be addressed.

What separates an active speaker from a passive speaker is where the filters that split the full band signal into its high/medium/low frequency components is.

In a passive speaker, you first amplify the full band signal, and then you split the the amplified signal into its frequency limited band to feed dedicated driver. Depending on the speaker, it could be a tweeter and a midwoofer, or a tweeter, a mid driver, and a woofer, or a 4-way system... In an active speaker, you first split the signal at line level, and then you amplify separately each frequency band to feed into its dedicated driver.

There are several advantages to an active system. Firstly, splitting a low power signal that doesn't have a load to drive afterwards is much much easier than an high power signal with drivers behind. You can use smaller, cheaper components in the crossover circuit, you can even get fancier with more complicated crossovers. And you can even do it digitally for near perfect crossovers. The major disadvantage is that you have to have a separate amplification for each frequency band, that's more circuitry, more failure points (of course, with current class D integrated circuit amps, that's less of an issue). In general, that's more expensive to manufacture.

With passive speakers and the constraints on filtering a high power signal, you're more limited in terms of how elaborate you can design a crossover without it becoming either too costly, or too inefficient (and therefore losing a ton of power as heat), or too hard to drive. The counterpoint is that you have less components overall and a single amplifier.

Now, the general public and consumer audio mostly uses passive designs, it's just that a lot of passive designs are a single power amplifier and a crossover after than amplifier in a single box. This is a powered speaker, it's a passive design.

As to why most high end and audiophile speakers are passive, I think the reason is mainly historical. It used to be that amplifiers were using tubes. Tube amps were no efficient, and needed air circulation, tubes also needed changing. It made a lot of sense to have a dedicated box and have a simple crossover inside the speaker. Active speakers with everything in the same box was unfeasible, and a separated crossover circuit plus multiple amplifiers in multiple boxes was too complicated.

Then Class A amps appeared, and they were very inefficient too.

Then we had Class AB amps and integrated everything in a single box was possible, but the ship had sailed already and the Hi-Fi world stuck with external amps and internal crossover circuit, it made it easier to upgrade each component separately too, so there was a financial incentive to keep passive designs.

In the studio and professional speaker world, people have mostly switched to active designs for decades now.

 

[Quinton595]

This is mostly untrue, and I think there is a misconception here that needs to be addressed.

What separates an active speaker from a passive speaker is where the filters that split the full band signal into its high/medium/low frequency components is.

In a passive speaker, you first amplify the full band signal, and then you split the the amplified signal into its frequency limited band to feed dedicated driver. Depending on the speaker, it could be a tweeter and a midwoofer, or a tweeter, a mid driver, and a woofer, or a 4-way system... In an active speaker, you first split the signal at line level, and then you amplify separately each frequency band to feed into its dedicated driver.

There are several advantages to an active system. Firstly, splitting a low power signal that doesn't have a load to drive afterwards is much much easier than an high power signal with drivers behind. You can use smaller, cheaper components in the crossover circuit, you can even get fancier with more complicated crossovers. And you can even do it digitally for near perfect crossovers. The major disadvantage is that you have to have a separate amplification for each frequency band, that's more circuitry, more failure points (of course, with current class D integrated circuit amps, that's less of an issue). In general, that's more expensive to manufacture.

With passive speakers and the constraints on filtering a high power signal, you're more limited in terms of how elaborate you can design a crossover without it becoming either too costly, or too inefficient (and therefore losing a ton of power as heat), or too hard to drive. The counterpoint is that you have less components overall and a single amplifier.

Now, the general public and consumer audio mostly uses passive designs, it's just that a lot of passive designs are a single power amplifier and a crossover after than amplifier in a single box. This is a powered speaker, it's a passive design.

As to why most high end and audiophile speakers are passive, I think the reason is mainly historical. It used to be that amplifiers were using tubes. Tube amps were no efficient, and needed air circulation, tubes also needed changing. It made a lot of sense to have a dedicated box and have a simple crossover inside the speaker. Active speakers with everything in the same box was unfeasible, and a separated crossover circuit plus multiple amplifiers in multiple boxes was too complicated.

Then Class A amps appeared, and they were very inefficient too.

Then we had Class AB amps and integrated everything in a single box was possible, but the ship had sailed already and the Hi-Fi world stuck with external amps and internal crossover circuit, it made it easier to upgrade each component separately too, so there was a financial incentive to keep passive designs.

In the studio and professional speaker world, people have mostly switched to active designs for decades now.

This is a very insightful comment, thank you for it.

 

[LTig]

There are several advantages to an active system. Firstly, splitting a low power signal that doesn't have a load to drive afterwards is much much easier than an high power signal with drivers behind. You can use smaller, cheaper components in the crossover circuit, you can even get fancier with more complicated crossovers. And you can even do it digitally for near perfect crossovers. The major disadvantage is that you have to have a separate amplification for each frequency band, that's more circuitry, more failure points (of course, with current class D integrated circuit amps, that's less of an issue). In general, that's more expensive to manufacture.

On the other hand the power amps need not deliver lots of current because the impedance of a driver without any passive crossover is a rather light load - its impedance will never be lower than the DC resistance of the voice coil, at least in a closed box. I think that's one of the reasons why many active speakers use rather simple chip amps inside. Even Neumann does it.

 

[kharan]

On the other hand the power amps need not deliver lots of current because the impedance of a driver without any passive crossover is a rather light load - its impedance will never be lower than the DC resistance of the voice coil, at least in a closed box. I think that's one of the reasons why many active speakers use rather simple chip amps inside. Even Neumann does it.

Absolutely, one driver per amplifier and directly connected to said amplifier is often far easier to drive than a typical passive speaker with a crossover sitting between a single amplifier and multiple drivers.

@OP, I will however say in favour of passive speakers that the difference is often academic in nature, or related to production optimization than it is qualitative in nature.

What makes a speaker qualitative is essentially its frequency response in axis, its frequency response out-of axis, its bass extension, and its distortion level at different volume levels. That's essentially determined by the choice of drivers, their capabilities, at which frequency and which slope you cross them, how far apart they are, and the form of the cabinet. You can design passive speakers to have the same sonic characteristics as active speakers, but they are demand a more careful choice of components. For example, you will want drivers that are really linear in a passive design, whereas you can easily correctly a slightly less linear driver in an active design to achieve the same result. Often, the choice will be more in terms of what the company's design competences are and what their customers expect.

And finally, passive designs are by nature more reliable, sort of. By moving the amplification section out of the speaker, the speaker itself has no true electronics, and will likely be very very reliable. Should the electronics fail, it's a lot easier and cheaper to replace an external amp compared to replacing the electronics module of an active design.